James Kropp: The Demon Tailor of Middleton
by Nakraf
Summary: At age 40, Ron returns to Middleton to find everything he once loved is gone, and vows revenge on everyone. Based on Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."
1. But why a tailor?

This is perhaps the darkest story I've ever written.  It's based on Stephen Sondheim's _Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street_, which is my third favorite musical of all time.

I do not own any Kim Possible characters, nor do I own _Sweeney Todd_.  That play is owned by Stephen Sondheim, and while we have the same first name, I am _not_ Stephen Sondheim.

**Chapter 1**

            The trans-county bus rolled through central Colorado towards its last stop: Middleton.  The driver was looking forward to finishing, so he could go home and enjoy the weekend with his wife and children.  He wasn't sure why Middleton was even still on his route.  There was nothing to see there.  There hadn't been for the last fifteen years.

            He looked in his mirror at the two remaining passengers on the bus.  One was a young man, about seventeen, who had a confident air about him.  He had dark brown hair, so dark that one would be excused for thinking it was black.  He was the kind of guy who one might expect to say; "Hello, world.  Show me what you've got."

            The man sitting across the aisle from him couldn't have been more different.  He was a middle-aged man, with blonde hair streaked with grey.  He was the kind of guy who one might expect to say; "I will rip out your intestines and force you to eat them if you piss me off."  The lines on his face, along with his sunken eyes, made him seem much older than he really was.  He had the air of a person who had once been carefree and happy, but had not seen a reason to smile in a good many years.  Perhaps the strangest thing about him was the chain he wore about his neck.  It had the skull of some sort of rodent with huge teeth attached to it.

            The bus finally screeched to a halt at the run-down Middleton depot.  "Last stop: Middleton!" the driver called.

            The young man stood up and grabbed a suitcase.  "This is my stop."

            The older man gave him an eerie sideways glance.  "Seeing as it's the last stop on the route, I kinda expected that."

            The two stepped off the bus.  The young man inhaled deeply, and let it out, a look of happiness on his face.  "It's good to be home again.  I have seen the world, but there's no place like Middleton!"

            "I'll say," the old man replied, darkly.

            The young man turned around.  "Is there something wrong, Mr. Kropp?"

            The old man looked his younger acquaintance straight in the eye.  "You are young.  Life has been kind to you.  You will learn."

            Kropp slowly stepped back, as the younger man raised his eyebrow in confusion.  _What sort of torment has he known _he thought, as he looked Kropp over, his eyes resting briefly on the rodent skull he wore about his neck.

            "So, Paul," Kropp said, "this is where we go our separate ways.  I shall not soon forget the young man who saved my life."

            "What sort of person would I be if I had left a decrepit, starving man on the side of the road like that?  It was no big."

            The last two words echoed in Kropp's head.  He quickly shook them out.  "I can think of a few men who would've not only left me, but made sure I wouldn't get picked up."

            His rant was cut short by the arrival of an elderly beggar woman.  She sobbed and clutched at their shirts, begging for any amount of money they had.  When Kropp refused, she cocked her head and said "Hey, don't I know you…?"

            Kropp violently drove her off.  As she ran away in panic, he couldn't help thinking that there was something familiar about her…something about her grey hair, tinged with red…

            _No,_ he told himself.  _It's just shadows of your past, come back to haunt you._

            "Don't mind her," Paul said, reassuringly.  "She's just a half-crazed beggar.  Middleton's full of them."

            "Middleton's full of something, all right."  Kropp kneeled down and began to draw in the freshly fallen snow with his finger.  He drew a picture of a stick figure man and a stick figure woman, with a little heart between them.  "There was a tailor and his wife.  And she was beautiful.  A foolish tailor and his wife.  She was his reason and his life.  And she was beautiful.  And she was virtuous." He drew a halo over the stick woman's head.  "And he was…naïve."

            Kropp looked at the snow, before drawing another stick man.  He explained that another man, one who was in a position of power, and one who, based on the way he drew him, had horns, bat wings, a pointed tail, and a pitchfork, had seen that the tailor's wife was beautiful.  In his lust, he had the tailor exiled somehow, which left his wife open and vulnerable.

            "Did she succumb?" Paul asked

            Kropp slowly looked at Paul, before getting to his feet and brushing the snow from his pants.  "Oh, that was many years ago.  I doubt that anyone would know."

            With a final word of farewell, Kropp and Paul went their separate ways.  Kropp began thinking to himself.  He thought back to the good old days, when he could be happy, before he had to change his name to James Kropp.  He needed many things.  He needed somewhere to stay.  He needed to find a way to make things normal again.  But above all, he needed answers.  He needed to find someone who could tell him what he needed to know: What really happened all those years ago?  What happened since then?  Where were the people responsible for what had happened?  And, one that he doubted anyone would know the answer to…of all the professions in the world, why the hell had he chosen a _tailor_?

            "Somewhere," he said to himself, "in this god-forsaken city, there has to be someone who remembers."

            Yes, a lot of the lines were taken directly from _Sweeney Todd._  That's why it says "parody" under the genre heading.  I would enjoy reviews.


	2. The Worst Tacos in Middleton

Nope.  Don't own.  Don't ask.

**Chapter 2**

            Kropp arrived at a small, decrepit-looking street.  It had once been a nice, homey place, but in the last few years, it had fallen into disrepair.  _Not my fault,_ he thought.  _I wasn't here the last few years._

            Finally, he arrived at a run-down building with a small sign labeled "Tara's Taco Shack."

            "You see?" he shouted to nobody in particular.  "This is the kind of job I would've liked!  I mean, sure, it's no Bueno Nacho, but at least she gets to work with food!  Instead, I'm a freakin' _tailor!"_  He gave the sign another look.  "Tara, eh?  Maybe she'll have some answers for me."  He pushed the door open and walked inside.

            Immediately, he was set upon by an energetic, middle-aged woman.  She had blonde hair, lighter than Kropp's, and was literally bouncing on the soles of her feet at the prospect of a customer.  "Did you come in for a taco?"

            Kropp shrugged.  "I guess."

            The woman darted behind the counter, and returned with a anemic-looking taco on a plate.  "Now be careful," she warned.  "These are probably the worst tacos in Middleton."

            Kropp, who had the taco halfway to his mouth, stopped suddenly and gave the taco a hesitant look.

            "If you doubt it, take a bite."

            She seemed pretty eager for him to eat it, so he took a small bite from the corner.  _My god!_ He thought.  _What is in this, cardboard?_

"Isn't that just disgusting?" she moaned.  "No wonder, with the price of meat what it is."

            Kropp reluctantly swallowed his mouthful of taco-shaped stuff.  "If all your food is this bad, how do you pay your mortgage?"

            "Well," she said, "the people don't have much choice.  Ever since Bueno Nacho went out of business, there hasn't been any other place to get Mexican-esque food."

            Kropp tried his best to keep his expression from wavering.  "Bueno Nacho went out of business!?"

            "Yes.  You see, their best customer disappeared fifteen years ago, and it pretty much all went downhill from there."

            "Their best customer disappeared, eh?  Any idea what happened?"

            "You know, it's funny you should ask.  I'm pretty much the only person who knows everything that happened."  She sat down next to Kropp and began to tell him a strange, yet eerily familiar, story.  "There was a tailor and his wife.  And he was beautiful."  She went on to explain how the tailor, Ronald Stoppable, best customer of Bueno Nacho, had married the love of his life and had a daughter.  "Donna, that was the daughter's name."  But this had a negative effect.  "There were two men who wanted the wife for themselves."

            "Who?"

            "Two of her former boyfriends: Steve Verruckt and Josh Mankey."

            Kropp gripped the edges of the chair, but avoided an outburst.  "What happened?"

            "They framed the tailor for a crime he never committed.  Mankey had all of the tailor's tax money redirected to his personal account, instead of the IRS.  When the tax collectors showed up at his door, and he showed them the papers showing that he had made the payments, Mankey framed him for falsifying documents and had him sent to live in a penal colony in the Mojave Desert for the rest of his life, leaving his beloved wife and their two year old daughter behind."

            "What happened to them?"

            The woman stood up and turned away from him.  "Mankey said that he was sorry for what had happened, and invited her to a dinner party, to take her mind off her troubles.  Only, when she got there, there was nobody there, except for Mankey and Verruckt.  She tried to run, but Verruckt held her down, while Mankey…well, they had their way with her."

            "No!" Kropp shouted, knocking the chair over.  "Kim!"

            The woman gave him a sly grin.  "Strange.  You seem rather concerned for someone you don't know.  Also, how did you know her name, when I never told you?"

            Kropp stood there, transfixed.  She had caught him.  "Well, I…uh…"

            "I knew it was you, Ron Stoppable."

            "Please, Tara.  It's Kropp now.  James Kropp."

            Tara rested a hand on his shoulder.  "I understand."

            "So, what happened to Kim?"

            Tara sighed.  "After the 'party,' she could no longer take it, so she…she swallowed a box of rat poison."

            Ron/Kropp's jaw dropped.  "No.  No!  Kim!!"  He fell to his knees, face in his hands.  After a few seconds, he looked up and asked, "What about Donna?"

            "Without a mother or a father, Josh decided to adopt her for himself."

            Kropp slowly stood up, eyes shut tightly.  "I will get you for this, Josh Mankey."  He opened his eyes.  "And Steve!  How could you?  You used to be one of us!  I thought you were my friend!"  He took several deep breaths, before looking around.  "Say, didn't this use to be your town house?"

            "It used to be, yes." Tara replied.  "When my old job had me laid off, I renovated it into a shop.  I still live here."

            "That means that my old house is right next door!" Kropp said.  "What happened to it?"

            "Not much," Tara said.  "Once it was vacant, I told everyone that it was haunted.  I had a feeling you might return one day.  But Mankey had it cleaned out and sold almost all of your stuff on e-Bay.  But, I did save one thing of yours."  She pushed a painting aside and opened a safe in the wall.  "I believe this belongs to you."  She took out a pair of scissors.  However, these weren't ordinary scissors; these scissors had lasers for blades.

            "Yes," Kropp said, slowly taking the scissors from Tara's hand.  "I remember these.  When I decided to become a tailor, Wade made these scissors, based on a Global Justice prototype laser sword.  They were guaranteed to cut through any fabric, without resistance."  He walked over to the window, where the setting sun was shining brightly.  He turned the lasers on to full power and held the scissors over his head.  "At last, my right arm is complete again!"

So?  How's it going?  I know it's short, but…

Don't just say "I liked it," unless you honestly can't find any place it could be improved.


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